Arkansas Group Says California's Harvey Milk Day Will Force Students To Cross-Dress

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 5/17/2011 9:31 am

In 2009, California declared Harvey Milk Day a state holiday on the slain civil rights leader’s birthday, May 22nd, despite vitriolicprotests from the Religious Right. Now, Jerry Cox of the Arkansas Family Council and the Family Council Action Committee is warning that by honoring Milk, children will be forced to cross-dress and have mock gay weddings, telling the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow that schools should instead spend more time honoring the Founding Fathers who “exemplified all the good in mankind in their life”:

Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council Action Committee in Little Rock, sees a double standard in public schools, as officials refuse to honor Christian leaders.

"On the other hand, if a person has left-leaning philosophies, a left-leaning theology, a left-leaning view of the world, then it seems that it's always in vogue to honor those people and to have a special holiday for them," Cox notes.

Children will be required to participate in exercises that honor Milk, which could include mock homosexual "weddings" and cross-dressing contests, as well as writing or reading activities. The pro-family leader decides that public schools are failing to promote good role models for students.

"What we ought to be doing is holding up the lives of people that were truly great, people like the Founding Fathers -- the ones who have exemplified all the good in mankind in their life," Cox contends.

Cox isn’t alone in claiming that a Harvey Milk Day would include mandatory cross-dressing, as Save California’s Randy Thomasson argued in 2009:

"The bill -- which will honor a sexual predator, a polygamous relationship advocate, and a public liar -- and extend a homosexual, bisexual, transsexual agenda as a role model to children to aspire to is going to the governor after a short stop on the [California] Senate floor," Thomasson explains.

If the bill is signed, Thomasson believes public schools and colleges would be pressured to honor Milk.

"It could mean gay-pride parades on campus, mock gay weddings, and cross-dressing exercises because these are all things that Harvey Milk believed in," he adds. "And to remember his life and values is to go with his sordid history, both publicly and privately, that are detailed in his biography."